The Evangelical Sunday Spectacle

Before I begin, I’m going to be upfront and tell you that I no longer go to church services. The short story is that I was bored to tears. It wasn’t always that way.

Like any normal child growing up I hated church services. I liked going to church. I loved the potlucks, before and after service, and even Sunday School if I had a teacher that made it fun, but I hated church services.

As I entered adulthood and started taking my relationship with God seriously, I still didn’t take a liking to services, and my attendance was spotty at best. Still, I was heavily involved in small groups, bible studies, and sharing life with other believers.

Something changed a few years ago. Me and my wife decided to get baptized. We had both been following Jesus for around 6 years at that point, but we had never really given much thought into baptism. It turned out to be a catalyst for both of us. Almost immediately both of us felt free to worship like never before. We felt on fire. We became heavily involved in volunteering, took on leadership positions, and led a marriage class together. Anything the church was doing, we were all about it. We supported it 100% in any way we could. During that time the service was everything to me. I threw myself into the worship. I was enthralled with the sermon. Eventually I became part of the worship team, which upped the stakes for me, as now I felt that I had a real hand in “saving souls.” That’s what I thought the service was doing, and it was doing it hand over fist.

However, my outlook started to change drastically. While I was on stage, I could see different groups of people. I could see those who sat in the back who weren’t really engaged at all. Maybe they didn’t even stand up during worship. Then there were those who were a little closer, and maybe they clapped their hands every once in a while, but they were mostly stationary. It was usually those up front who were fully into the worship. I had made that same progression, all the way from the back, to the middle, to the front, and finally to the stage.

I started to realize that I was part of a production. There was a stage and an audience. The majority of the time and money went into putting on this production. There was the sound and video equipment, stage lights, smoke machine, the host of volunteers, hours of practice, all to put on a performance once a week. All of it was done with the stated purposes of “saving souls,” but it started to feel really cheap. There was always a part at the end of the service where the audience was told to close their eyes, and that if anyone wanted to be sure that they’d go to heaven when they died to pray the following prayer.

It was then that I spoke with someone who used to be a part of it. They told me that he began to see the same people raise their hands over and over again, but that they would be counted as new converts. The numbers were a big deal. They would routinely report how many hands went up for salvation that morning to thunderous applause, and we were asked to help support the church financially and by volunteering so we could reach even more people for Jesus. The numbers were being fudged, and if we’re being honest there really isn’t a way to quantify something like that. Only God truly knows, but the numbers reported were one of our main fundraising tool. This is common in churches across America.

Thinking back, I probably stayed too long. Part of me loved the position that I had and how I was seen by others. My own pride and selfishness made me procrastinate. I eventually stepped down from the worship team and all of our volunteer positions. I just didn’t believe in it anymore. I knew that the service was influential at one point in time in my spiritual growth, and I knew it would continue to be for others, but like seeing the secret to a magic trick, the awe was gone. I would walk in, sit in the back, and look at the back of someones head. That lasted about 10 minutes, and then I would get up and walk out. I would spend the rest of the time listening and ministering to friends out in the lobby, which I found more fulfilling than anything I had experienced in the service.

This brings us to the question “What are we doing in our gatherings?” My story is set in a modern evangelical church that people would coin “seeker friendly.” However, even after I left that environment, and went to simpler forms of church with little to no production, I was still bored to tears. The production was irrelevant. It all had to do with the fact that it was a passive experience. There was an audience, and there were the performers. While the service can certainly do good, and God has and continues to use it, there are severe limitations on what it can accomplish. Mainly it’s because only a handful of people get to exercise their gifts, to minister to the body.

You might say “you have to do more than just Sunday morning,” and bring up small groups. Yes, small groups are very important in spiritual growth, and I still attend them even though I’ve abandoned the service. Even in small groups there tends to be a leader/facilitator, and it is usually based around a curriculum. Still, the format is more open, and people are permitted to share Christ with one another more freely. Even small groups aren’t enough. In Acts it says that the early church broke bread together daily and had a shared life. That might not be possible logistically in today’s world, but the principle we see is that these people were invested in each other’s lives and functioned like a family.

This makes way for the question: if so much else is needed besides the service to build up the body, and provide opportunities for members to exercise their gifts and function as priests to one another, then why is the emphasis put on the service? Why does most of the time and resources go to the service? Why is the life of the church centered around it? Why is the service what it is? What are we doing?

We Protestants usually have some reservations about the practices of our Catholic and Mainline brethren, but I think they get one thing right that we miss. The climax of their gatherings is not the sermon or the worship. It is the breaking of the bread, and the drinking of the wine. This is to say that their gatherings are centered around partaking of Christ, rather than the individual gifts of a few of its members. It undoubtedly looks different now, but this is what it meant in Acts when it says they broke bread daily. They partook of Christ together. It was what united them, and they lived by the indwelling life of Christ together.

The body can not be built up while they are living their separate, individual lives, and they can’t be built up while gathered if they are not permitted to function in the role the Holy Spirit has gifted for them. It is time that we take the building of God’s house seriously, and abandon our traditions if they render the body mostly passive. It will mean gravitating away from individual personalities, and an emphasis on the corporate body, so that He may be visible. We need to trust that Christ can lead his church, and let Him lead and speak through us together.

Make no mistake, this is God’s passion and purpose, and it is not for our own advancement or glory, but for Him. He desires a dwelling place. He desires a family. He wants a bride and a body for his Son. Will we let Him have what He desires?

2 comments

Thanks for the publishing of the article. It gives an interesting take on the Sunday worship service.

I would like to add a few words in defense of the much-disliked “old fashioned service,” a service which I am grateful to attend every Sunday (after which I join the type of “fellowship” you describe in your article).

Some dislike traditional services for not having enough contemporary music or being friendly enough to seekers. But I think traditional service arrangement is wonderful. The old-fashioned hymns are often high quality. There’s likely a better chance of getting a more substantial message in this “old fashioned” service, and the old-fashioned service is very helpful for cultivating reverence.

And yes, I do see the benefit of the fellowship, which I am also fortunate to be a part of every Sunday.

As a child, it is common to stare up into the night sky with wonder. The moon, as a bright glowing orb, draws the child in, and stretching up, on his tippy-toes, using every fiber of his muscles, he reaches for it only to come up short. But he is still filled with awe.

This is the purpose of high church, and what so many contemporary services fail to grasp. The dressing up, the ritual, the symbolism, the order, etc., are all meant to draw us away from our individualism for a time, and be a collective. We shed our names and our identities, and as one body, reach up on our tippy-toes for the Kingdom. And though we as humans will never be able to touch the moon in this way, we nevertheless feel the wonder of God as we try.

Altar & Throne

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